Brew day disaster

[dzamba]

I was brewing a half batch of APA on Saturday and I had more problems than I can count. I hit my 152 mash temp, no problemo. When I added some more water to the mash to get to 170 I must have disturbed the grain bed. When I tried to vorlauf it was stuck. I tried everything: scraping the top of the of the false bottom with my stirrer, blowing in the tube, and then sucking the tube (insert joke here) but nothing. I had to move my water from the lauter tun back to the pot and dump the mash in to the lauter tun, wash the false bottom put it back in and dump the mash back into the mash tun. I was able to vorlauf with no problems. When it came time for the lautering my temp had dropped down to 160. I thought since I already had a rest at 170 for 10 min I would be fine. (am I?) During the lautering process I get a stuck sparge. That is when I got a little more impatient and added all of the water from the lauter tun to the mash. And then ran all of it through a colander. Needless to say I missed my pre-boil mash temp, so I had to boil it for a little longer than I had planned. Then I realized that my starter never took off. Rather than risk it, I went to the brewing supply store and picked up a vial of yeast. Not California Ale Yeast, but English Dry Ale Yeast.

So any tips for preventing a stuck sparge, and what is the best way to fix a stuck sparge?

 

[nathan]

rice hulls added with your grains might help.
if you try to take your wort too quickly, you can suction the mash to the false bottom and compact it, making a stuck mash, so be sure to start out your runnings very gently.

stir the heck out of it before sparging, and get the temp up to 170+ which will lower the viscosity. then start runnings slowly, and do a decent vorlauf to clarify (from the stirring), and only slowly raise the flow rate to what you need, and don't exceed it in haste.

 

[Boar Beer]

Sounds like one of our early brew days
stuck sparge, blowing in tube, dump everything out and start again.

You might be sparging too fast
We mash out with a good deal of water and sparge slow
We fly sparge and when doing a 12-13 gallon batch the process takes about 1 hour.

good luck on your next batch

 

[dzamba]

Thanks, guys. I will try again with the other .5 batch on sunday. Pray for me.

 

[ericm]

FWIW, if you're stuck going to the store at the last minute (and therefore no starter), you're probably better off with a packet of dry yeast (assuming the available varieties would work with what you're brewing). US05 would be fine for an APA.

 

[Saccharomyces]

Sounds like running off too fast is creating suction resulting in a stuck sparge. Don't open the valve all the way, try to runoff at 1 qt/minute.